With Kevin Durant injured, who fills the void in OKC?

Kevin Durant’s injury created a huge void for the Oklahoma City Thunder — who fills in?

The biggest news to come out of NBA preseason so far was Sunday’s surprising announcement that Kevin Durant will be out up to two months with a broken foot. Assuming all goes as planned, this might not affect the Thunder’s chances of winning a title too adversely. With any luck, KD will be at full strength well before the playoff run. He might even be a little fresher than usual having avoided the wear and tear of the the additional 25-30 games he might miss.

That is, assuming Oklahoma City makes the playoffs. In the hyper-competitive West, a 10-20 start might be too much to recover from; last season the Suns won 48 games and still missed the playoffs. In order to avoid digging themselves into that deep a hole, other players on the Thunder are going to have to fill the void left by Durant.

En route to his first MVP award in 2013-14, Durant led the NBA with a 33% usage rate, per basketball-reference.com. Add his additional burden as a primary playmaker for much of the year and the overall portion of the offense he carried was immense. Just under half of OKC’s possessions ended with Durant either shooting or setting a teammate up for a shot. Among non-point guards, this was second in the league behind only LeBron James, who often played as a de facto point guard himself.

Not only did Durant take up an enormous amount of possessions, he did so in a historically efficient fashion.

Another issue for filling the void is Durant wasn’t particularly ball-dominant. NBA wings had the ball for just over 6% of their time on the floor on average. Durant unsurprisingly had the ball more, but not a ludicrous amount as the chart below demonstrates (showing the highest time of possession non-point guards):

WingsKDTOP /

So to replace the lost production with Durant injured, the Thunder have to find players to generate a lot of efficient shots without dawdling over much with the ball. No big deal, right?

The natural assumption is that Russell Westbrook will shoulder much of this burden. Certainly, he will be asked to play bigger minutes this season. Westbrook’s 30.7 minutes per game were the fewest of his career as the emergence of Reggie Jackson and Durant’s transcendence allowed Thunder to ease Russ back onto the floor following multiple knee surgeries, But aside from perhaps five more minutes a night, Westbrook is unlikely to be able to effectively do much more offensively.

As it was, Westbrook carried the heaviest combined scoring and playmaking burden of any offensive player in the league. Looking at both his scoring attempts and playmaking, almost 60% of OKC possessions involved Westbrook while he was on the floor.

The upper limits of “True Usage” are unclear, since sufficient playmaking and passing data has only been public since last season. Whatever the theoretical bound might be, Westbrook almost certainly can’t add much more the load he’s already carrying.

Jackson might help some as well (assuming his own preseason injury is short term). But he was already involved in 42.2% of OKC’s plays, with that number probably goosed a little by Westbrook missing almost a third of the 2013/14 season. After Jackson it’s not clear how much individual offensive creation is left in the cupboard.

The chart below illustrates the Thunder’s remaining rotation players. It shows the portion of plays used by each player (“TruUsage”) broken into playmaking (AstUsage) and shooting (traditional Usage rate) alongside the percentage of each players’ made field goals which were assisted (% Asst). Percent assisted is a decent approximation of a player’s ability to create his own shot, with around 58% of all made baskets around the league coming via assist. Finally, time of possession (TOP%).

OKCTUSG /

With the subtractions from last year crossed out and newcomer Anthony Morrow in bold, there simply aren’t many creative players left on the roster. Serge Ibaka is a reliable shooter and finisher, but is also one of the more dependent scorers in the NBA. Nick Collison is a good passing big man, but how many of those opportunities came from his understanding of playing two-man games with Durant? Jeremy Lamb has potential, but faded badly down the stretch after the signing of Caron Butler.

The coach of another team suddenly without its offensive mainstay might have inadvertently offered some guidance. During a podcast with Grantland’s Zach Lowe, Indiana coach Frank Vogel described how the Pacers would generate offense without the injured Paul George and the departed free agent Lance Stephenson:

"Vogel: “If you bring two to the ball, if you screen appropriately, you bring two to the ball, and then you pass it, or you attack the help, I think anybody can get in the lane and we’ve got guys that are more than capable… George Hill, C.J. Watson at the point guard spot, are good penetrators. They can get in there off the bounce… Rodney Stuckey, that’s his specialty, and he’s gonna be a big-minutes guy for us this year. So he’ll be able to get in the lane, and then obviously you can attack with the pass. You know, bring two the ball, attack, draw help, share it, and then when you have a defense in rotation, you have them right where you want them, you can attack the paint at will. So it’s gonna be about bring two to the ball and forcing rotations to get where we want offensively, this year.”Lowe: “So, pick-and-roll solves all problems. Screening solves all problems. You can generate it even if you don’t have a one-on-one…”Vogel: “Well, we have to. And obviously for some teams, it’s easier. Some teams have players that can do it on their own. And some teams need to rely on ball movement, player movement, and screening, and that’s what we’re going to have to become.”"

The answer is probably similar for Oklahoma City. While a simple offense based on good spacing and the individual talents of Westbrook and especially Durant makes a great deal of sense, removing Durant from the equation means the team has to run more intricate sets. Creating help-and-rotation situations will allow players like Ibaka or Lamb who might not be able to break down static defense to attack scrambling defenders. This in turn will lead to putbacks and dives to the rim from Collision and Steven Adams.

It’s inconceivable the Thunder will be able to make up all of what Durant gave them during his time on the sideline. But coaxing just enough from the team system will prove to be Scott Brooks’ biggest coaching challenge. Failing to rise to that challenge might just be enough to cost him his job.

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